I have had many teachers. Some of them very distinguished men and women who I never met. One of those distinguished persons was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), a Frenchman who I never met.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Roman Catholic priest (a Jesuit), and a man of science, a paleontologist. He was part of the team who discovered the remains of the "Peking Man". Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin had a great interest on how to integrate the vision of scientific evolution with his Christian faith. He saw the hand of God everywhere in nature, and in evolution he saw how God works in the world.

Of course the Roman Catholic Church did not agree with him, and it caused him a lot of problems. He wrote many books explaining his views, but the Church did not allow him to publish during his lifetime. He obeyed. But after his death, his books have been published and many -- not just Christians -- have been blessed with his ideas of God and evolution. I am sure that Christian fundamentalists and fundamentalists of other religions consider him to be in the lowest realms of Hell. To me, he is one of my teachers.

He believed that the process of evolution never stops. He believed that evolution had to reach the "Omega Point" or the Christification of all Creation. I have adopted his view in a more universal manner. I understand that evolution never stops: it continues "ad infinitum" at many levels. It is what Buddha would have called "Nirvana" or what Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita calls "Brahman-Nirvana" or Supreme Enlightenment.

Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is (or was) what I would call a true "Contemplative Mystic." His path was a Christianity that many have not been able to reach yet. He saw a Light that many today have not been able to see. He will probably never be canonized, but in my version of the Cosmic Religion, he is Saint Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Patron Saint of the Cosmic Truths of Science and Religion.

Hermano LuisMoriviví Hermitage

_________________"To be united with the Lord of Love Is to be freed from all conditioning."

This is really interesting.But, the Catholic church do not see creation and evolution as aspects that contradict each other anymore.

I went to Catholic school in the mid 1970s, in Puerto Rico actually.And our religion teacher was a priest, who was also a science teacher.

One of the boys in the class asked him about the creation-evolution dilemma and what he thought.I will never forget what he said (I was 12 yrs old).

He said that they are not mutually exclusive, nor contradictory. He said that God created the universe and the world, and things on the planet, but that evolution had always existed and that it was the way in which the beings on the planet continuously adapted to their environment.

The Church changed it attitudes thanks in many ways to men like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. There are many things that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that still the Church refuses to accept. But the Church had to recognize evolution. Someday the Church will recognize what he did. To me Chardin is not just a light in the Roman Catholic Church, but a universal light that showed that spirituality flows with the laws of evolution. We continue to grow.

Hermano LuisOM Peace Amen!

_________________"To be united with the Lord of Love Is to be freed from all conditioning."

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